"In the 125 years of gloved HW's, there's been exactly 1 golden era."

IMO there were three golden ones: 30s, 70s, 90s. But yeah, hw is a bit dire compared to lower divisions, especially lw to mw.

 

McGrain,

My favorite era's of heavyweight boxing are from 1968-1980 and 1986-1999........ Them years had a huge amount of talent that transpired into some damn great fights.......

Odd thing is, Clay / Ali of 1964 to 1967 truly was the greatest, though I bypassed that time frame cuz he was so good, most of his title fights were lopsided victories..... Plus, Larry Holmes from 1980 to 1985 had some damn good fight that I saw as they occurred, but since Holmes was often depicted as bland and bitter, rarely did his title fights ever get the recognition a heavyweight title fight is supposed to receive....

"Ali & Holmes" are still two of my all-time favorites.....

bbb:good

SR.BILLARDO:hat

 

It's bollocks.
It's becoming a tired old cliche.

There are loads of magazine and newspaper articles from early 70s that will be saying that the current heavyweights don't compare with crops of HWs from yesteryear. So, for the writer to use the "look at what old magazines were saying" line and in the next breath make the 70s an exception is not very convincing line of argument.

Early 70s may have been the best time, but I think it gets exaggerated. If it was the best time, it's because of Frazier v Ali, (1 and 3, in particular) and Foreman's quick rise and fall.
Guys like Quarry and Shavers bask in the glory that those three greats conjured up.
The unique star personality of Muhammad Ali and a "golden era" of televised sports broadcasting in the new color TV era actually accounts for A LOT of the romanticizing of the ranks of heavyweight boxing of the time. In my opinion.

 

I think the late 60s to mid seventies was a deep deep deep division.

I think that the 90s gets WAY overblown. I will agree that there was a lot of talent in the 90s (and a lot of what we consider talent was never really realized in that era) but for the most part those guys werent fighting each other, were fighting each other too late, or turned in non performances when they did fight. In addition to that there were a large preportion of unsatisfactory outcomes to fights in that era as well (bad decisions, bites, mental breakdowns, DQs etc). The one common denominator in that division in that era is Holyfield who fought pretty much everybody (and thats why he is the standout of that era IMO) but you cant build a deep division on what ifs and thats what the 90s was: Seemingly endless, but ultimately unrealized potential.

LOL that color TV is why we look at the 70s as such a great era!

 

sorry, but thats because you're a hipster. Hipsters are very fond of taking photos in black and white as opposed to colour.

 

The issue with the 70s is not just the fighters who were available, but the fact that they were matched against one another.

There are other eras that had the potential to be as good, if only the top fights had been made.

 

Actually, the majority of the 1980s WBA chumps who kept taking turns babysitting the belt were all very capable fighters, but were also terribly lazy and unmotivated as all hell..... That also applies to the few post Holmes WBC chumps, as well..... All good and capable, but either totally lazy or just fat slobs with talent.....

MR.BILL

 

Exactly. Whats even more amazing is the amount of fantastic matchups, above and beyond what actually came off, that were legitimately signed but called off due to injuries etc. When later on (the 90s) those guys wouldnt even negotiate with each other much less actually sign.

 

:deal Greg page, Michael Dokes, tim witherspoon, tony tucker, tony tubbs and Pinklon thomas were all wasted talent to a certain degree.

 

well said. Thankfully we had guys like Holyfield who took the best fights he could. Holyfield was the glue that kept the 90's heavyweights alive! Lewis did a good job too but holyfield gave us the wars with the top dogs!

 

heavyweight boxing is on its way out this time more than any others because the public for the most part has lost interest! Most of the public dont know about david haye, vitali, wlad, briggs etc.

But they do know about Fedor, Kesnar, overeem, courture, etc. the mma world is producing more entertaining fights, on a regular basis earning million dollar ppv gates.

plus with that growing polularity of it, the big kids who would have went the boxing route are now more likely to go the mma route.

Think about this, most amaerican kids wont naturally go to cricket, they would go towards baseball cause its whats popular in the states. If you got to other countries its different!

mma will ko HEAVYWEIGHT boxing for sure!

 

In Germany, currently boxing´s second biggest market, nobody knows those MMA gus but everybody knows the Klitschkos. Same is true for most European countries.

 

If only Germany had exciting fighters:-(

 

It dosn't take a visionary to see what the 90s could have been with the right matches being made.

Another era where all the elements were there except the contracts was the black dynamite era. You had Jim Jeffries and Jack Johnsons primes overlaping. Basicaly the two best heavyweights up to that point. However that had resolved itself, you would have had a Sam Langford and Sam McVea emerging to challenge the winner. Age would eventualy have eliminated Jeffries and later Johnson, but by then Wills would have been emerging on the scene. Its even possible that Luther McCarthy could have been something special if he had not been killed.